Pages

Monday, March 23, 2009

Happy Monday! I hope you had a great weekend! It certainly was springtime here in Chicago with lots of sun and warm temps. Yesterday, I attended the annual Home & Housewares Show here in Chicago and this year did not disappoint! It was a wonderful 3 day trade show (not open to the public) hosted by the International Housewares Association (IHA) that focuses on promoting the sales and marketing of housewares.

Attending the show is one of my yearly highlights because I network with various companies dedicated to specialty gourmet food and culinary related products as well as area restaurants to work with for my blog and my culinary event planning with What's Cookin Chicago. I've made quite a few connections and there will be a lot of great giveaways in store for our weekly Foodie Freebie Fridays as well as some amazing culinary events planned for What's Cookin Chicago. I hope you stay tuned because there is some great fun in store for both my blog readers and fellow Chicagoans!

Another perk to attending the Home & Housewares show is the opportunity to meet some celebrity chefs. This year I couldn't stay as long as I wanted due to some outside appointments I had in the afternoon, however I did get the chance to meet chefs and received autographed cookbooks from:

Tyler Florence

George Duran

Takashi Yagihashi

Gale Gand

I also got to attend cooking demos of:

Todd English

Nirmala Narine

Iron Chef Morimoto

(All pictures above are from Google Images)

Sadly, the fabulous pictures I took with and of the chefs have to be put on hold because I packed away my camera cord... and I just can't sort through the 40+ boxes right now. But I do promise that I will post and share them in 10 days - which is when we move and unpack!

For this week's Foodie Freebie Friday, I want to pamper readers with housewares since I've been inspired by all the wonderful things I saw at the Home & Housewares trade show. This week, I'm giving away $150 worth in Pampered Chef products, chosen by one lucky reader!

Headquartered just outside of Chicago, in Addison, IL, Pampered Chef is a "premier direct seller of essential kitchen tools and part of the Berkshire Hathaway family of businesses. The Pampered Chef® and its sales force of Independent Pampered Chef® Consultants have been helping families prepare quick, delicious meals since 1980" -- Pampered Chef Website

For more than 20 years, The Pampered Chef® has been helping to gather families around the table for quick, delicious meals that are as much fun to prepare as they are to eat. The business was launched in 1980 by company Founder and Chairman, Doris Christopher — an educator, home economist and mother who saw the need for professional-quality kitchen tools in the everyday kitchen.

Capitalizing on her knowledge of food preparation techniques and her natural talent for teaching, Christopher amassed an inventory of what she considered to be the essential home kitchen tools, promoted them under The Pampered Chef® name and began showcasing them at in-home cooking demonstrations called Cooking Shows.

We believe that multipurpose tools are the cornerstone of an efficient kitchen, and we're committed to developing timesaving tools, tips and recipes that enhance shared mealtime and suit busy lifestyles. Our products are designed to be used in more than one way, so kitchens are no longer cluttered with rarely used utensils.

I'll leave it up to the lucky reader to decide what items they want to choose from the online catalog worth $150! So if you have been wanting to stock up on some housewares from kitchen tools, bakeware, cookware, servingware and more, this is an Foodie Freebie Friday you don't want to miss out on!

Some guidelines:- Giveaway is only for those who live in the United States. My apologies to my international readers!- You must have a valid email address so that you can be contacted if you win.

To enter the giveaway, leave a comment answering:- What's a kitchen gadget or tool you have but never use? Is there a story behind how you ended up with the gadget/tool? (Late night informercial perhaps?) I'd love to hear all about it!

Deadline: Thursday, March 26, 2009 at 12 midnight CST.

One Winner will be randomly chosen by Random.Org's Interger Generator based on the number of your comment and will be announced on Friday, March 27, 2009. Good luck!